For Good This Time
by KifKathleen
Summary: What leads the Doctor to Henrik's department store during an Auton invasion? And how does he manage to keep running into one particular blond human? The episode "Rose" from the Doctor's point of view.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note/Disclaimer:** This story came about because I noticed that the Doctor is off-screen for large swaths of the episode "Rose". I was curious about what he is doing when we aren't watching him, and how he keeps crossing paths with Rose. I debated long and hard about whether to post the story, but in the end, I decided that, between the "off-screen" scenes and the Doctor's thoughts when he is "on-screen", it contained enough original material to justify its existence. That being said, anything you recognize belongs to Russell T Davies and/or the BBC.

* * *

 _Light. Heat. Pain. A billion suns, bursting from his skin, pouring from his throat, searing his eyeballs._ The first impression to reach the consciousness of the Doctor's ninth regeneration is one of overwhelming sensation. The second impression, as the furious energy ebbs away, is one of overwhelming lack of sensation. Something is gone, something is missing. His head feels as if it were stuffed with cotton wool.

"Maybe this body is deaf." No, that isn't it – he can hear his own voice, hear the words spoken in a curious and unfamiliar accent. He can hear the hum of the TARDIS, comforting, soothing, both in his ears and in his head, and – wait, that is it. In his mind, he can hear the whispers of his ship – and nothing else.

His people! Where are the Time Lords, the billions of Gallifreyan voices always floating in the back of his mind? What has happened to them?

To nerves still buzzing with regeneration energy, the jolt of adrenaline that accompanies this panicky question is exquisitely painful. But it does help to burn away some of the mental fog that always follows a regeneration. He presses the heels of his hands against his temples and forces himself to breathe deeply and evenly whilst he struggles to recall his last moments in his previous body.

He remembers his discovery of the High Council's plan (or, more accurately, Rassilon's plan, which he bullied the High Council into accepting) to end the war by burning the entire universe whilst transmuting themselves into beings of pure consciousness – the ultimate scorched-earth policy. He remembers his decision that the Time Lords needed to be stopped just as much as the Daleks, that the madness had to end now, no matter what the cost. He remembers breaking into the Panopticon and stealing the Moment. He remembers the long, hot, dusty trek back to his childhood refuge, seeking one last shred of comfort in the face of the horror he was about to perpetrate. And he remembers…nothing else.

"Did I go through with it? Did I deploy the Moment? Did I destroy them all?" he asks the empty console room. The TARDIS pumps the time rotor slowly up and down, and seems not at all inclined to reveal the truth of his missing hours. But it doesn't matter. The emptiness in his head is answer enough. He has no idea how he survived, no idea how he ended up back on his ship, but those details are unimportant. The silence proclaims his guilt. He gags on the knowledge, sinking to his knees, curling into a ball on his side. And then he sleeps.

When he awakes, he feels…well, not all right. He doubts he will ever describe himself as all right again. But…resigned. He didn't intend to survive, didn't want to survive. But survive he did, and he isn't so far gone as to rectify that mistake.

Well, if he isn't going to lie down and die, that means he has to get up and move forward. He hauls himself to a sitting position and surveys his new body. The hands look younger. He is taller than before, by several inches if the expanse of bare shin below his trouser cuffs is anything to go by. "Right then, first stop, wardrobe," he says as he pulls himself upright on the console.

He strips his clothes off as he walks through the corridor, and dumps them all down the chute that leads to the incinerator. Normally, old outfits, no matter how out of favor with his new self, make it back onto the wardrobe racks, souvenirs and mementos of the men he had been. But these…they stink of dust and sweat and blood and death. He wants no mementos of the man who ended the Last Great Time War.

He arrives in the wardrobe stark naked, feeling horribly exposed, feeling the urge to cover himself, feeling foolish for his embarrassment when there is no one there to see him. He rifles through hangers, desperate to find something to cover his shame, quickly growing frustrated with his previous selves. Garish coats and outsized scarves, cricket gear and evening wear...it all looks so frivolous, so ridiculous. He suddenly hates all those men, carefree, flitting about the universe, having a jolly old time saving worlds full of strangers, blissfully ignorant of the fact that they would one day destroy their own. He seizes an armful of clothes and flings them to the floor with an inarticulate cry of rage.

The TARDIS hums her disapproval of the mess he has made. But she doesn't seem to hold it against him, because when he turns around, there are shelves where he has never seen shelves before, filled with heavy-weight black trousers, and T-shirts and jumpers in a somber rainbow of muted shades that match his mood. "Fantastic!"

Once clad in a pair of trousers and a maroon jumper, his feet encased in a pair of sturdy boots he found beneath the shelves, he feels immeasurably better. He knows this is just as illogical as his earlier feeling of vulnerability. After all, it is just thin fabric – nothing armoured, nothing bulletproof, nothing that will protect him from the dangers beyond the TARDIS doors nor from the dangers of his own psyche. Nevertheless, he feels more prepared to face the universe as he strides back to the control room and throws open the door to the outside.

Time there was in a past life when he would have checked the scanner to get an idea of the conditions awaiting him, checked the instruments to ensure that the atmosphere was breathable. Not now. If he is stepping out into a vacuum or the heart of a volcano, so be it.

It is neither of those. It is London. He leans against the TARDIS, one leg cocked back against the door, watches the city swirl by, and wonders how he got here. He certainly doesn't remember setting the destination. But his ship has a mind of her own sometimes – oh, who is there left to kid? Most times – and she has apparently decided to bring him to the closest thing he has left to a home. He can't complain. Twenty-first century London is always good for a distraction, and it has been a lifetime since last he was here.

So he spends the day playing tourist. Breakfast is a 99 in Piccadilly Circus; lunch is chips in Trafalgar Square, watching a young black man amuse a blond girl with his goofy dance moves. But always, everywhere, he can't shake the sense that something is wrong. Flashes of movement in the corner of his eye as he passes by shops; some vague disturbance of the electricity in the air; a nebulous feeling that timelines are being tugged out of place. _War has made you paranoid. You don't know what normal feels like anymore._ But no matter how many times he tells himself this, he can't shake the uneasiness that dogs him.

As evening falls, he finds himself back at the TARDIS. The key already in the lock, he takes one last look around. And then pockets the key when he sees a strange glow on the roof of the shop across the street. "Hello, that doesn't look right."

A few minutes and several applications of the sonic screwdriver later, he is stepping onto the roof of Henrik's department store. He isn't alone. A grey-haired man in olive work trousers and a battered leather jacket is kneeling on the tarpaper, his back to the Doctor. One look at the luminous ball the man is examining, and the Doctor knows exactly what he is up against.

"Oi, watch it! Get back from that thing! Sharp now!"

The man whirls to face him, and now the Doctor can see under the jacket a collared shirt, olive to match the trousers. A janitor perhaps, then, or a maintenance man. "Sorry, sir, but you can't be up here. Employees only."

The Doctor waves the psychic paper – one of the few good things he took from the war. "No worries. I'm the city inspector. Just doing a routine…roof inspection. What have we here?"

"It's a…it's, uh, it's a…"

 _Okay, maybe inspector wasn't such a good cover story. He can't very well admit to the official who could shut down his business that he's got some unknown technology floating around his shop._ He spares the man further floundering. "It's fine, you don't have to tell me. I already know what it is." He drops to his haunches next to the advance guard of the Nestene Consciousness and fishes the screwdriver out of his trouser pocket. The ball is just a relay device, probably one of many scattered about the city. The Consciousness itself is what he needs to worry about, what he needs to find.

"Well, if you know, then by all means tell me. Because I've been electrician here for 40 years, and I can tell you I've never seen that thing nor anything like it in all my days." The man has apparently decided that honesty is the best policy.

The Doctor grunts in reply as he considers the Nestene device, as he considers his options regarding the two issues he faces. First issue: how to find the location of the Nestene Consciousness. The most reliable method, he judges, is to get inside the casing of the relay and reverse the polarity so that it will send signals to its parent rather than receive them. Then he can track the signal backwards. His hands start implementing this plan whilst his brain moves on to the second issue: how much of the truth to tell the human hovering over his shoulder.

"See, this little contraption here is – oh!" He is distracted by the opening of a small port on the front of the ball. "Got in already. I haven't lost my touch." He crouches down to peer inside – and realizes immediately that it wasn't any skill on his part that opened the device. He wrenches himself sideways, but not quite fast enough. A laser beam sears through his arm, and a throaty cry tears through his clenched teeth. He is back on his feet in an instant, propelling the stunned electrician towards the roof access door as the ball rotates to track their movements. He slams the door shut behind them just as another laser blast hits the doorframe.

"What on earth was that?"

The Doctor is breathing hard. "Blimey, it comes with a self-defence mechanism now. I didn't expect that." He twists his neck to examine the damage. It is a surface wound, a gouge along the deltoid, with little bleeding thanks to the cauterizing effect of the laser, nothing that the dermal regenerator can't fix right up. The new jumper, on the other hand, is a complete loss.

"Here." Before the Doctor can look up, the human has his leather jacket off and is draping it around the Time Lord's shoulders. "We'll need to get you to hospital, but in the meantime, you should keep that covered and protected."

"No, really, I'm fine, I'll just…" The Doctor tries to shrug out of the coat, but the other man is having none of it.

"You saved my life just now. Way I reckon, if you hadn't come along and interrupted, that thing would have been firing at me. And I don't think I could have jinked as fast as you. So lending you a jacket is the least I can do. Now tell me, what the blazes is going on?"

The Doctor returns to the question the contemplation of which was so rudely cut short by Nestene weaponry. The man in front of him is frightened, that is obvious. _Well, no surprise there. I'm scared too._ But he isn't blubbering or running away. He can handle the truth, the Doctor judges. "That thing on the roof is a communications relay, passing orders from an alien…oh, high command, I suppose you could say…to its invasion force."

The electrician blinks. "You do realize you sound like a nutter."

"Oh absolutely!" the Doctor replies cheerfully. "Nevertheless, those are the facts. The relay device is – oh, stupid Doctor, stupid, stupid Doctor!" He smacks his forehead with the heel of his hand. "We've got to leg it, right now. And evacuate the shop. Everyone in here is in danger."

"Well, the shop is closing now, so everyone will be out anyway." A tinny female voice over the PA confirms this statement.

"Fantastic. That means we only have to worry about ourselves. Of course, we're the ones it really wants."

"But it's out there and we're in here. Or can it come after us, can it get inside?"

"I don't think so, no. If it were equipped with motive capabilities, it would be knocking on the door by now. But that device, its main purpose is to relay commands to its troops. So if its self-defence system can't reach us directly, it's perfectly capable of calling in reinforcements to handle the job for it. Which means we've got to get moving."

They are halfway down the stairwell when they are confronted with two pale faceless humanoids, plastic skin gleaming dully in the dim security lighting, marching side by side up the stairs towards them.

The Time Lord stops abruptly, hands raised in surrender. The human can't react quite so fast, and bumps into the Doctor, jostling his injured arm. The Doctor hisses in pain before pasting on a bright smile for the Autons' benefit. "Wait, hold on now. I think we've had a bit of a misunderstanding. My friend and I didn't mean you any harm up there on the roof – we were just curious."

"Wait, you think these are the 'troops'?" says a low voice in his ear. "They're just plastic dummies. What are they going to do, pose at us?"

"No," says the Doctor with exaggerated patience. "They are going to shoot lasers from their fingers."

"You're taking the mick!"

The Doctor doesn't reply. His eyes flick around, evaluating the situation. They are on an exit landing, and he estimates that he could probably make it through the fire door in time, but he doubts that human reflexes would be able to keep up. He will have to improve the odds.

He begins edging almost imperceptibly closer to the door, muttering over his shoulder, "Stay behind me. And get ready to make a break for it." To the Autons, he waves his hands placatingly. "Listen, I know you belong to the Nestene Consciousness. What I'd really like is a parley face-to-face…so to speak. Do you think that can be arranged?" Their only reaction is to take another step closer. The Doctor goes on, "Aw, come on! I just said 'Nestene Consciousness'! Aren't you the least bit curious about how I knew that name?"

The blank faces don't look curious. In tandem, the dummies raise their right arms stiffly in front of them.

The Doctor knows he is running out of time. But he is now close enough to the exit that his new friend might be able to escape, if the Doctor can distract the Autons, keep them focused on himself. "You probably don't recognize me, but we've actually met before. I am the Doctor." They freeze for a moment, then take another threatening step forward. He grins. "Ah, you remember me. Fantastic. So if you could just –"

Conjoined fingers swing down on hinges, revealing plastic laser barrels, and the Doctor knows that time is up. "Run! Now!"

He hasn't counted on the human having a heroic streak. Instead of diving for the door, the electrician throws himself in front of the Doctor, arms splayed protectively, just as twin laser beams light the air. All the Doctor can do is catch the body that falls heavily against his, stare down at the two neat holes drilled right through the single human heart. There is no time to rage or to mourn, not if he doesn't want the man's sacrifice to be in vain. He lets the body slide to the ground and throws himself out the door, feeling the tingling charge of laser bolts passing a hair's breadth from his skin.

Somehow he manages to find another exit across the floor and escape from the building without encountering another Auton. The TARDIS is right across the street, and he heads straight for the storage room. He casts a longing glance at the med bay as he passes it, his arm burning, but he can't spare the time. The priority right now is to stop the Consciousness. Breaking the link between the Autons and their controller will not stop the invasion, but it will slow it down, hopefully buy him the time that he needs. A little Nitro-9 should do the trick.

It is while he is wiring the detonator to the explosive that he realizes he never introduced himself to the Henrik's electrician. The man laid down his life, and the Doctor can't even dignify his memory with a name. "I won't make that mistake again," he announces to the console room as he heads back out to face the foe, adding this bit of shame to the heavy pile weighing down on him.

The sonic screwdriver makes short work of the now-locked door in the alley. He starts to head for the roof, then hesitates. This explosion is going to take out most of the building, and if there is some workaholic window dresser or a night cleaning crew still inside… "I don't have time to be tracking down stray humans. I have to think of the greater good, of the main objective." But the words ring hollow in his ears. That is the credo of a general in war. But the war is over, and he has never been a general. And what is the good of trying to save any of them if he doesn't try to save all of them? With a sigh, he sets the screwdriver to scan for human life signs.

Sure enough, he finds one, down in the basement. "Of course, it would have to be the complete opposite direction of where I need to go. And that far away from the blast, they'll probably be fine." But his feet carry him down the stairs, almost without his realizing it.

As he enters the basement, he can hear a voice, female, high and sharp with fear, and he quickens his steps. She is claiming to think that someone is playing a prank, but the timbre of anxiety tells him that she doesn't truly believe it is just a joke. He sees her at last through a doorway: a young blond woman, pressed up against some pipes, eyes squeezed tight, surrounded by a cadre of Autons who have apparently abandoned the lasers in favor of a more manual approach to the elimination of the human element. He slides his hand into hers just as the leader raises his arm for the deathblow; her eyes pop open, her head snaps in his direction. He feels almost as startled as she looks; he hadn't expected the frisson of energy that runs through him at the contact. How long has it been since he touched another living creature? Too long to remember. Surely not since before the Time War. Very few sentient species can thrive without some degree of companionship and affection, and Time Lords, for all their formality and strictures, are not among them. He can't help a daft grin at the girl whose touch feels like the first raindrops after a long drought. And then he remembers that they are still in mortal danger. "Run!"

They jog down the hall at the human girl's pace. _She's got to learn to run faster; this speed will get her into trouble_ , the Doctor thinks – somewhat irrationally, since he has no intention of ever seeing her again once he gets them out of this situation. _If_ he gets them out – behind them, he can hear the heavy stomps of plastic feet, and he expects at any moment to feel a laser blast between his shoulder blades. When it doesn't come, he can only conclude that word has reached back to the Nestene Consciousness that the Doctor is in town, and that it wants to capture him alive.

The Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to summon the lift and then to disable the safety mechanism on the doors. Good job, too, because an Auton manages to stick an arm into the lift, but the doors refuse to reopen, blocking out the half dozen other dummies crowding up behind their leader. The Doctor wrestles with the intruding limb until he wrenches it from its owner, the doors finish sliding closed, the Autons are shut out, and Time Lord and human are on their way to the ground floor.

The girl is standing well back in the car, but, the Doctor notes with approval, she is not cowering. "You pulled his arm off!"

"Yep. Plastic." He tosses her the arm and a grin, then folds his arms across his chest, ignoring the way the movement tugs at his damaged skin, and faces the doors. It wouldn't do to get too used to having a connection with another being. If the last hour has proven anything, it is that this regeneration is just as hazardous to those around him as previous ones had been.

"Very clever. Nice trick. Who were they then, students? Is this a student thing or what?"

The Doctor glances over his shoulder, puzzled. "Why would they be students?"

She shrugs. "I don't know."

"Well, you said it. Why students?"

"''Cause…to get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students."

The Doctor smiles his approval. Her conclusion is completely wrong, but at least it is logical, given the limited facts she has to work with. "That makes sense. Well done."

"Thanks." She looks rather chuffed with herself. Which of course means that he has to burst her bubble.

"They're not students."

That doesn't slow her down much. "Whoever they are, when Wilson finds them, he's going to call the police."

"Who's Wilson?" the Doctor asks as he feels the lift halt at their destination.

"Chief electrician."

 _Wilson._ The Doctor stores the name away. No one else would ever know of the man's heroism, but the Time Lord will never forget. Still, he refuses to go all sentimental in front of this girl. "Wilson's dead," he says bluntly, as the doors slide open.

"That's just not funny. That's sick!"

Funny? Does she think he is joking about a man's life? He ignores her comment, waves her away from the lift control. "Hold on. Mind your eyes."

"I've had enough of this now," she goes on as he burns out the control to keep the Autons from following them down. "Who are you then? Who's that lot down there?" As he heads down the hallway without answering, her voice rises. "I said, who are they?"

His frustration and tension boil over. So she thinks she wants to know what is going on? Wilson wanted to know as well, and look where that got him. But since she won't leave it alone… "They're made of plastic. Living plastic creatures. They're being controlled by a relay device in the roof, which would be a great big problem if I didn't have this." He waves the cobbled-together bomb at her. "So I'm going to go up there and blow them up, and I might well die in the process, but don't worry about me. No, you go home. Go on. Go and have your lovely beans on toast. Don't tell anyone about this, because if you do, you'll get them killed."

 _Ah, fantastic, I see this new me can still do melodramatically mysterious._ He supposes it should be a comfort to have a trait that follows him so consistently throughout regenerations. He has managed to usher her out a fire door during his little rant, and he slams it closed now and starts back down the hallway. He hasn't made it more than two steps when he realizes that he has repeated the mistake he just said he would never make again. He leans back out the door; the girl is still standing in the same spot, looking a bit dazed. "I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?"

"Rose," she manages.

"Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!" He waves the bomb to emphasize his point, and then shuts her out, for good this time.

* * *

 _To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize it, it belongs to Russell T Davies and/or the BBC.

* * *

The Doctor takes the stairs two at a time and bursts onto the roof. He is tempted to look over the parapet, to make sure that Rose is far enough away from the blast zone, but he schools his mind back to the task at hand.

He dares not approach the relay device, his smarting arm a reminder of what it could do to him. "Lucky for me," he tells the Nitro-9 as he sets its timer, "I learned the art of txklpit from a master player on the planet of Verba. I think the humans would call it horseshoes." He doesn't want to examine too closely what it means for his sanity that he is already desperate enough for conversation to resort to talking to a bomb.

He judges the distance, the wind, the weight of the explosives, swings his good arm experimentally a couple of times, and finally lobs the bomb at the Nestene device, just as the door to the stairwell flies open and disgorges a horde of Autons. The Doctor pauses just long enough to see his shot land perfectly up against the relay ("Ringer!"), then runs for the edge of the roof where the building butts up against its neighbor. He hurls himself over the parapet just as the shockwave of the blast hits him, propelling him safely onto the next roof.

* * *

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor ponders his next move as he runs the dermal regenerator over his arm. He has bought some time by destroying the device in the shop, but there are bound to be others, and of course, the danger won't be past until he convinces the Nestene Consciousness to abandon its plans. He needs to do some tinkering on the sonic screwdriver to install settings that can detect and disrupt the Nestene signal. And he will need to concoct some sort of anti-plastic, just in case. If the Time War taught him anything, it was that reason and persuasion don't always carry the day.

But before all that, he needs to make another trip to the wardrobe. He peels off Wilson's leather coat and his own ruined jumper, drops them to the floor, pulls on a maroon top identical to its predecessor, and starts to head for the lab, then stops and retrieves the jacket. It is comfortable, it suits him well, both in size and style. But more important, it is a reminder of a kindness and a sacrifice, and the Doctor could do with more such reminders. He slides his arms back into the sleeves and immediately feels better protected from the world.

* * *

The sun is illuminating the London skyline when the Doctor finally steps out of the TARDIS and surveys the weedy council estate that the ship has landed in. After a long night in the lab, he returned to the console room to try to pinpoint the location of the Nestene Consciousness. But the Consciousness was apparently anticipating his interference, because the signal was camouflaged beyond even the TARDIS's capabilities to detect. The one thing he was able to track was the receiving of the animating signals; a map of London on the monitor is covered with little blips representing living plastic. He hopes that if he can get his hands on one of these Autons, he might be able to trace the signal back to the source. And so he has picked one of the blips, mostly at random, just because it seemed a bit more mobile than many of the others, and landed as close as he dared. Now his task is to finish tracking it on foot.

The new Nestene-detecting setting on the screwdriver leads him down a street, through an alley, across an asphalt courtyard, up several flights of concrete stairs on the outside of a graffiti-covered brick building, and to a banged-up metal flat door with a cat flap set in the bottom.

The Doctor crouches down, reaches out with one finger, gives the flap an experimental poke. It moves easily. He is about to push it again, try to see what might be beyond the door, when it suddenly flips wide open, and he finds himself staring into a set of decidedly non-feline eyes. He jumps to his feet as the door is flung open, and comes face to face with the shop girl Rose.

"What're you doing here?"

"I live here."

She lives here? All of London, and the Nestene signal happened to lead him right to her door? Is this just an astounding coincidence, or is there something else going on? His mouth spouts randomness as his brain spins. "Well, what do you do that for?"

She looks a bit irritated. "Because I do. I'm only at home because someone blew up my job."

"I must have got the wrong signal," he says, mostly to himself. Then a terrible thought strikes him: the Nestene Consciousness is wont to make copies of people to further its plans. "You're not plastic, are you?" He raps her forehead and is relieved by the sound and feel. "No, bonehead. Bye, then."

He turns to go, but a non-plastic hand grabs a fistful of leather jacket and hauls him backwards. "You. Inside. Right now." He shrugs and resigns himself to follow her. The screwdriver led him here, after all. Might as well find out why.

From down the hall, a woman says, "Who is it?"

Rose sticks her head in the doorway that the voice issued from. "It's about last night. He's part of the inquiry. Give us ten minutes," she says, and continues on down the hall.

The Doctor pauses to see who she was talking to. A rather blowsy woman in a pink satin robe is sitting at a vanity full of makeup and hair supplies. "She deserves compensation," the woman declares.

The Doctor has no idea what compensation Rose deserves or why, but agreement seems the safest course. "Oh, we're talking millions." He glances around, part of him looking for evidence of Autons whilst another part is just fascinated to observe a middle-aged human in her natural habitat.

Said human tilts her head in a way that strikes him as strange. "I'm in my dressing gown."

"Yes, you are," the Doctor agrees with this statement of the obvious.

"There's a strange man in my bedroom." Her voice seems to have suddenly dropped in pitch, and he drops his to match it, not sure why.

"Yes, there is."

"Well, anything could happen."

 _Anything could happen? What is she talking about? Is a human trying to give a Time Lord a lesson on timelines and possibilities and…oh. Oh,_ that _sort of anything._ His face unconsciously twists as he considers whether there is any potential chain of events that could involve him and this creature. _Nope, the timelines can't be stretched that far._ "No." And he hurries down the hall after Rose.

"Don't mind the mess," Rose is saying as he catches up to her. "Do you want a coffee?"

"Might as well, thanks. Just milk," he says, having learned through unpleasant experience during his day as a tourist that this body has gone off of sugar. Rose is still wittering on in the kitchen about the previous night's events, but he ignores her in favor of continuing the anthropological examination that he began in the bedroom. A gossip magazine on the coffee table proclaims an exclusive on the latest celebrity couple. The Doctor snorts when he recognizes the faces on the cover. "That won't last. He's gay and she's an alien." In the not-too-distant future, a Cassalurian princess pursuing a pop career on Earth will call home crying to her mother, the Supreme Queen, after catching her all-too-human husband in bed with another man, and the Doctor's fifth self will have to use some fast-talking diplomacy to turn back a battle fleet sent to avenge the princess's honor. _Ah, the good old days yet to come._ He drops the magazine and reads through a current potboiler instead, while Rose is still rambling in the kitchen about jokes gone wrong. "Hmm. Sad ending." He tosses the book away. There are enough sad endings in life; he doesn't need them in his leisure reading.

A pile of unopened bills, several marked "Final Notice", give him a bit more information about the girl he saved. "Rose Tyler." _Remember that._ And then he is distracted by catching the first sight of his face in a mirror. He had studiously avoided mirrors in the TARDIS wardrobe, not too eager to see who he has become. But now, with lives to save, an invasion to avert, a purpose to accomplish, the bands constricting his hearts have given just a little bit, and he finally feels capable of facing himself. He studies the new visage. Severe haircut, sharp features, steely eyes – a fitting regeneration. But he still has enough vanity to be not totally displeased with what he sees. "Ah, could've been worse. But look at the ears." He flicks the protruding appendages with his fingers, then turns back to exploring his surroundings.

His attention is next caught by a pack of playing cards. Every regeneration has its own interests and talents, and some of his selves were dab hands at sleight of hand. Maybe this body is too. He attempts to shuffle, and is very glad that Rose still has her back to him when the pack goes flying in every direction. "Maybe not." Fine, so these hands aren't meant for card tricks. But the ears like satellite receivers prove useful when he hears the noise of something scuttling across the floor. "What's that, then? You got a cat?"

"No," he hears her reply as he looks over the back of the couch. And then he doesn't hear much else, as the Auton arm that he thought he had disposed of last night attaches itself to his throat. He staggers around the room, fighting to loosen the deadly strong grip, and falls back onto the sofa as Rose enters with the promised coffee. He has just enough presence of mind to notice that she is unfazed to see a death struggle going on in her living room.

"I told Mickey to chuck that out. You're all the same. Give a man a plastic hand… Anyway, I don't even know your name. Doctor, what was it?"

With a herculean effort, he wrests the Auton from his throat and flings it away – then watches in horror as the arm defies Newtonian physics to stop in midair, make a right turn, and launch itself at Rose's face. The Doctor lunges after it, and the three of them crash into the wall, the coffee table, the sofa, until he can finally pull the arm free and find the right screwdriver setting to jam the Nestene signal. He glances about at the carnage, the shattered glass, the coffee soaking into the worn carpet, and deals with it as he always deals with the aftermath of his adventures: with flippancy. He tosses the plastic to her. "It's all right, I've stopped it. There you go, you see? 'Armless."

She is not so easily amused. "Do you think?" She swings the dummy piece at him. Hard.

"Ow!" He grabs his own arm, then the Auton's. "Well, if you're going to go around beating people with it, you're not having it." He starts back down the hallway, then turns around to see her standing, hands on hips, amid the ruins of the coffee table. "Fair play to you, though. You didn't freeze and you didn't panic and you didn't scream. I've seen a lot of people in a lot of tight spots, and there's not many I could say that about. Well done, Rose Tyler. Now you go have a fantastic life." Then he is out the door before she can reply.

Well, that was his plan, anyway. Apparently Rose Tyler isn't fully clued in to said plan, because she has a reply after all. The flat door reopens a second after he shuts it, and then she is chasing him down the stairs. "Hold on a minute. You can't just go swanning off."

"Yes I can. Here I am. This is me, swanning off. See you."

"But that arm was moving. It tried to kill me."

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "Ten out of ten for observation."

"You can't just walk away. That's not fair. You've got to tell me what's going on."

 _Fair? A tough, smart girl like her, living in a rundown estate like this, and she still clings to the idea that things should be fair?_ He isn't sure whether to scoff or to salute her. He settles for a simple "No, I don't."

"All right, then," she says, still not giving up, still chasing him down the driveway and past rows of garages. "I'll go to the police. I'll tell everyone. You said if I did that, I'd get people killed. So, your choice. Tell me or I'll start talking."

He glances over at her. "Is that supposed to sound tough?"

She has the self-awareness to sound a bit abashed. "Sort of."

He snorts. "Doesn't work."

"Who are you?"

"Told you. The Doctor."

"Yeah, but Doctor what?"

"Just the Doctor." _Honestly, humans have such an obsession with proper names._

"The Doctor," she repeats dubiously, but he decides to interpret it as a greeting and gives her a little wave and a big smile.

"Hello!"

"Is that supposed to sound impressive?"

He has the self-awareness to realize that he is playing the clown. But if it pushes her away, if it protects her from getting dragged into this whole Nestene business that has already nearly killed her twice… "Sort of."

But, Rassilon, the girl is persistent. He is walking fast now, trying to shake her off, but she jogs a couple of steps to catch back up. "Come on, then. You can tell me. I've seen enough. Are you the police?"

He scoffs at that. Imagine, him in a uniform, taking orders from a commander. "No, I was just passing through. I'm a long way from home."

"But what have I done wrong? How comes those plastic things keep coming after me?"

"Oh, suddenly the entire world revolves around you! You were just an accident. You got in the way, that's all."

"It tried to kill me," she half-shouts.

"It was after me, not you," he says, exasperated. "Last night, in the shop, I was there, you blundered in, almost ruined the whole thing. This morning, I was tracking it down, it was tracking me down. The only reason it fixed on you is 'cause you met me."

"So what you're saying is the entire world revolves around you."

"Sort of, yeah."

"You're full of it."

He grins. A bit of Sarah Jane's fire, this one has. "Sort of, yeah."

"But all this plastic stuff – who else knows about it?"

"No one."

"What, you're on your own?"

It is the concern in her voice that nearly undoes him. This human who has known him for only a few minutes, fretting over him with a question that pokes a wound she couldn't even begin to guess at. He swallows down the lump in his throat and forces a flippant tone. "Well, who else is there? I mean, you lot, all you do is eat chips, go to bed, and watch telly, while all the time, underneath you, there's a war going on."

She reaches across him, takes the arm back. "Okay. Start from the beginning. I mean, if we're going to go with the living plastic, and I don't even believe that, but if we do, how did you kill it?"

 _Ah, an intelligent question_. He likes people that asked intelligent questions; they help him organize his often-whirling thoughts. "The thing controlling it projects life into the arm. I cut off the signal – dead."

"So that's radio control?"

"Thought control." He glances over at her to see how she is handling these revelations. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," she says, her furrowed brow telling him that she means it, that she is processing the implications, already moving on to the next question. "So who's controlling it, then?"

"Long story."

"But…what's it all for? I mean, shop window dummies, what's that about? Is someone trying to take over Britain's shops?" she asks with a sly smile, a little giggle.

Her laughter makes him laugh, and he is slightly surprised to see that he still knows how. "No. It's not a price war." She laughs a bit harder at that, and in a mercurial shift of mood, he has the sudden urge to wipe the grin off her face, to make her understand what he is up against, what is on the line. "They want to overthrow the human race and destroy you. Do you believe me?"

Her smile fades. "No."

"But you're still listening." She stops, and he keeps walking. The TARDIS is in sight now; just a few more steps and he can leave her behind, safe from his struggle against the Nestene Consciousness, safe from him.

But then he hears her voice behind him: "Really, though, Doctor. Tell me, who are you?"

He turns around, sees her squinting at him in the sunlight. Too stubborn for her own good, this girl. Can't she just let him go? Who is he? He is the Bringer of Darkness, the Destroyer of Worlds, an Oncoming Storm which a sunny human child certainly could not handle. He glances away, a ghost of a smile flickering at the naïve curiosity that he is about to smother. "Do you know like we were saying about the Earth revolving?" He walks back towards her slowly, and she holds her ground, but he can see her awareness of his darkness rising with every step. "It's like when you were a kid. The first time they tell you the world's turning, and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it." He takes her hand, and it is cold, nearly as cold as his own, and trembling slightly, but her eyes are unwavering on his. "The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling round the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…" He drops her hand, and it falls limp back at her side. He meets her eyes again, sees her suck in her breath almost imperceptibly. He knows he is scaring her, and he feels bad about that, but it is for the best. She needs to be afraid, needs to walk away and not look back, needs to let him go before he drags her down in his wake as he does everyone else. "That's who I am. Now forget me, Rose Tyler." He takes the Auton from her, waves goodbye with it. "Go home." And then he walks into the TARDIS without a backward glance, dematerializes, leaves Rose Tyler behind. For good this time.

* * *

 _To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize it, it belongs to Russell T Davies and/or the BBC.

* * *

The TARDIS reappears next to the smoldering remains of the department store; the site of his first confirmed Nestene sighting seems as good a place as any to try his next plan. He pulls the monitor towards him, and his fingers fly across the keyboard, accessing the UNIT network that he knew like the back of his hand so many lifetimes ago. "Password? Can't possibly still be using the same password, can you? Well, worth a shot. Two F's, one L… Ha! Need to upgrade your security, Brigadier!" He grins at the screen as the information he seeks flashes across it.

A few minutes later, he is scanning though the signal logs. The bureaucratic minds at UNIT are diligent about storing every signal captured by every satellite and radio telescope around the world. Most of it is just background radiation, or the occasional fragment of an intercepted transmission from a civilisation that had crumbled to dust long before its message reached Earth. The problem is that UNIT can't reliably filter out pertinent signals from all of this static. But the Doctor can. And in rather short order, he does.

There it was, thirty-six hours earlier, the energy signature of a spaceship entering Earth's thermosphere. And it is still there, hovering in geostationary orbit above the planet. "Got to be the Nestene. Too big of a coincidence to have two alien ships arriving on the same day." It occurs to him that the TARDIS is technically an alien ship which arrived only a few hours later. "Well, coincidences can happen, of course. But no way that _three_ aliens all showed up at the same time." He pats the rotor. "Time to pay our friends a little visit, what do you say?"

The TARDIS must be in a good mood, because she wheezes back into reality at the precise coordinates he calculated from the UNIT signal logs. The Doctor pokes his head cautiously out the door to see an empty cargo hold.

He moves silently through empty and dimly-lit corridors. _Running in low-power mode with a skeleton crew, apparently. Most of them must already be on Earth as the invasion force. Got to get to the teleport room, should be able to track their movements if I can find it._ He slows as he approaches a doorway with light spilling out of it and soft, intermittent clicking noises coming from beyond it. He peers around the pentagonal doorframe to see what appears to be a mess hall, with two Nestenes alone at one of the long tables, bent over some sort of game board, their moves of the game pieces the source of the clicking he had heard. He is irrationally proud to see that he was correct all those years ago when he told Jo Grant that in their natural state they resemble cephalopods...at least, if a cephalopod were made from rubbery blue plastic.

Well, if these two are supposed to be the home guard, they are rubbish. The Doctor glides unnoticed past the mess hall and continues his search for the teleport room. He finds it without ever finding another Nestene. "That's more like it. Let's see what you've got, then."

He fumbles awkwardly at controls not designed for humanoid hands; the coordinates of the last port, made less than an hour earlier, are still displayed on the console, but he can't seem to call up any older activity. "Fine, then, let's see what you've got going on beneath the covers." He sonics open an access panel on the base of the console and shakes his head in disgust at what he sees. "Warp-shunt technology. Who's been feeding you access to that, then?" Just one of the many consequences of the Time War: civilisations being exposed to technologies that they would not have developed on their own for centuries or even millennia, technologies that they are not ready for, that allow them power they should not have yet.

Well, if he could just interface with the teleport controls, he might be able to find the location of the main body of the Consciousness. He thrusts the sonic screwdriver into the mass of rubber tubing and wiring inside of the console - and promptly sets off an alarm. He winces at the klaxon resounding through the halls. No matter how rubbish the guards are, there is no chance of their missing that alert.

He might still be able to find what he needs, if he can work fast. "Come on, give me something," he pleads with the machine as he probes with the screwdriver. But then he is out of time – two Nestenes undulate into the room on blue tentacles. He risks raising his head over the console to watch their movements.

"You're either much faster than I gave you credit for, or else you're a different pair from the ones I saw in the mess hall. I mean, I don't mean to sound speciesist, but it is awfully hard to tell you lot apart." The only response is a pair of laser blasts sent in his direction.

The problem in dealing with enemies with a hive mind, he reflects as he drops back down behind the console, hearts pounding, is that they can work in perfect sync. They are doing a forking manoeuver now, he can tell from the barely-audible sibilance of tentacle on floor. As they both round the console from opposite sides, leaving him nowhere to hide, he raises his hands placatingly and rises to a half-crouch, so that he is at their height. They raise their guns, tracking his position. He faces the one on the right, trusting that the other's movements will mirror it.

"Now, if you could just give me a mo to discuss this." He watches as tentacle tightens on trigger, and drops bonelessly to the ground an instant before the pulse leaves the barrel. Two laser beams pass over his head and through the opposing Nestenes.

He doesn't dare wait around – the trick won't work twice if any other guards show up. The screwdriver has recorded the coordinates of the last teleport, and he can only hope that that will be enough, as he vaults over the console and runs for the TARDIS.

* * *

There is no Nestene signal at the coordinates he had found, but there is one a short distance away, moving at a speed which suggests it is in a car. He tracks it until it comes to a stop for longer than the duration of a traffic signal, and then materializes his ship nearby. He steps out into an alleyway behind a restaurant and follows the guidance of the screwdriver through a busy kitchen. He stops just inside the swinging doors between kitchen and dining room, staring through the round windows at the room full of diners, wondering how he is going to discern plastic from flesh without making a scene. And then he spots an increasingly familiar face.

"Rose Tyler," he mutters through gritted teeth. "Of course you would be right in the thick of it." He turns his attention to her dark-skinned companion. _Correction_ , he thinks as he squints more closely, _her dark plastic companion. Well, that solves the problem of picking the Nestene out of the crowd._

He wonders if Rose is in cahoots with the aliens. He has seen it so often throughout the universe – persons willing to sell out their own species for whatever advantages the invaders promise. It depresses him to think that fresh-faced, earnest Rose Tyler could be among that number, that the scene in the shop basement was just a ploy staged to...to...well, he can't imagine why she would have faked it, but there is only one way to find out. He liberates a bottle of champagne from a large bucket of ice on a nearby trolley, and strides through the swinging doors.

He slows as he approaches the table, the better to eavesdrop. The Nestene is grilling Rose for information about the Doctor, in a stilted and glitchy cadence. _She knows. She has to know. That voice, how could she not?_ "Your champagne," he announces as he arrives at the alien's side.

The Nestene doesn't spare him a glance. "We didn't order any champagne. Where's the Doctor?"

The Doctor steps to Rose's side of the table and presents the bottle. "Madam, your champagne."

She doesn't glance up either. "It's not ours. Mickey, what is it? What's wrong?"

 _'_ _Mickey_ _'_ _?_ _'_ _What's wrong_ _'_ _? Maybe she's not in on it, maybe she just really is that thick. Although, to be fair, 'boyfriends being replaced by_ _plastic_ _duplicates' probably isn't high on her list of dangers to watch out for._

Plastic skin gleams in the light. "I need to find out how much you know, so where is he?"

The Doctor gives it one more try. "Doesn't anybody want this champagne?"

"Look, we didn't order it," 'Mickey' says as he looks up - and then smiles as he recognizes their waiter. "Ah. Gotcha."

The Doctor gives the bottle a good shake and untwists the wire cage as Rose looks on blankly. "Don't mind me. I'm just toasting the happy couple. On the house!"

The cork bursts free, hits the duplicate in the forehead, sinks straight into the plastic without a trace. The Nestene works his jaw for a moment, then spits the cork onto the table. If the Doctor had any lingering suspicions about Rose's complicity, they are erased by the shock on her face.

A predatory smile spreads across the Auton's face. "Anyway." He stands, his hand morphing into an enormous paddle that splits the table in two with one blow. Rose jumps up, backs away, as the Doctor grabs the duplicate in a headlock, wrestling until the head comes off in his hands. For just a split second, he thinks it is over, thinks he has severed the connection, and then plastic eyes pop open, plastic lips say, "Don't think that's going to stop me."

And it doesn't. The head is no longer a danger, but the body is still a lethal weapon - perhaps even more so, now that it is blindly stumbling after its enemy. Rose hits the fire alarm on the column behind her, yelling "Everyone out! Out now! Get out! Get out!" The Doctor grins his approval at her presence of mind, as he tucks the Nestene head under his arm like a rugby ball and runs after her, through the kitchen and back out into the alleyway.

The Auton is right behind them, but the Doctor presses his weight against the door to hold it closed while he locks it with the screwdriver. It won't hold the creature for long, but long enough.

Rose has already dashed to the far end of the alley, where a padlocked chain holds two corrugated metal gates together. "Open the gate! Use that tube thing. Come on!"

"Sonic screwdriver," he corrects as he strolls calmly to the TARDIS.

"Use it!"

"Nah. Tell you what, let's go in here." He enters the ship, feeling the little flutter of pride and anticipation that he gets whenever introducing a new person to his magnificent vessel, his oldest companion.

He can hear her outside, wailing, "You can't hide inside a wooden box! It's going to get us! Doctor!" He doesn't bother to respond; she is clever enough to know that following him is her only option.

Sure enough, a moment later, she bursts through the doors. He makes a show of being busy at the console, but from the corner of his eye he relishes her gobsmacked expression. When she turns and bolts out the door, he counts down under his breath, "Three...two...one..." and then she is back inside. And true to what he is coming to expect of her, she has already moved past initial shock to focus on the matter at hand.

"It's going to follow us!"

"The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door. And believe me, they've tried. Now shut up a minute." He focuses on his task of wiring the Auton head into the console. "You see, the arm was too simple, but the head's perfect. I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source." He smiles in satisfaction at his handiwork. And at having someone to explain his cleverness to. He does rather enjoy having an audience. Wiring done, he turns back to his guest, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Right. Where do you want to start?"

The shock finally seems to be sinking in. "Er, the inside's bigger than the outside?"

"Yes." He likes the tentative way she says it, as if she knows that this is an incredibly unoriginal statement of a blindingly obvious fact, and is slightly embarrassed to be mentioning it at all.

"It's alien." She sounds slightly more confident about that observation.

"Yeah."

"Are you alien?"

Ah, the big one. Some people, having known aliens only as hostile invaders, simply cannot wrap their heads around this one. "Yes. Is that all right?"

But this is Rose Tyler he is talking to, so he isn't terribly surprised when she says simply, "Yeah."

She seems to be handling all these revelations well so far, so he blithely continues, "It's called the TARDIS, this thing. T-A-R-D-I-S. That's Time And Relative Dimension In Space." And then stops when she unexpectedly bursts into tears. Emotional humans have never been his forte. He shifts awkwardly, says with forced brightness, "That's okay. Culture shock. Happens to the best of us."

But her next words are as unexpected as the tears were. "Did they kill him?" When the Doctor stares blankly, she says slowly and with great emphasis, as if he were a particularly slow-witted child, "Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?"

The Doctor blinks. "Oh. I didn't think of that."

"He's my boyfriend. You pulled off his head. They copied him, and you didn't even think? And now you're just going to let him melt?"

"Melt?" he repeats in confusion. He turns to see the plastic head collapsing in on itself. "Oh, no-no-no-no-no!" He dances a frenzied jig around the console, flipping switches, pulling levers, trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

"What're you doing?"

"Following the signal. It's fading. Wait a minute, I've got it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Almost there. Almost there! Here we go!" The TARDIS shudders back into being, and the Doctor dashes for the door, hoping against hope. Rose is yelling something after him, but her words are lost in the fog of disappointment as his sonic scan informs him that the Time Lord has once again run out of time. "I lost the signal," he complains to the London skyline. "I got so close."

"We've moved. Does it fly?"

"Disappears there and reappears here. You wouldn't understand." And if that sounds curt, well, too bad. Taking the time to explain his ship to her was what put him in this pickle in the first place.

But she isn't heeding the warning in his tone. "If we're somewhere else, what about that headless thing? It's still on the loose."

"It melted with the head. Are you going to witter on all night?"

Her voice turns pensive. "I'll have to tell his mother."

 _The Auton's mother?_ The Doctor turns to stare at her in confusion.

"Mickey," she says impatiently. "I'll have to tell his mother he's dead, and you just went and forgot him again! You were right, you are alien."

He suppresses a growl of frustration. Humans, they don't understand, they've never understood - it isn't that he doesn't care about the fallen, it is that he knows how many more would fall if he took the time to mourn each one. "Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey -"

"Yeah, he's not a kid."

"- It's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering on top of this planet, all right?"

"All right?" she repeats, outraged.

"Yes, it is!" He folds his arms tightly across his chest, tries to tamp down his irritation, tries to refocus on the problem at hand.

When she speaks again, she sounds slightly more conciliatory. "If you are an alien, how comes you sound like you're from the North?"

Well, that is actually a good question. Where do any regeneration's idiosyncrasies come from? But this isn't the moment to ponder the issue, so he avoids it. "Lots of planets have a north."

"What's a police public call box?"

He follows her gaze to the top of his ship, and some of his irritation bleeds away as he surveys the old girl through fresh eyes. "It's a telephone box. From the 1950s." He places a hand against the blue wood, feels the faint vibration of the living ship against his fingers, and can't help a slightly goofy grin. "It's a disguise."

Rose smiles a bit too. "Okay," she says, and if she sounds like she is humouring him, well, he will let it slide. "And this, this living plastic. What's it got against us?"

Ah, now they are back to the matter at hand. And now she is asking the intelligent questions that will help him focus and work out a plan. "Nothing. It loves you. You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. Its food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein plants rotted, so Earth, dinner!" He mimes a knife and fork.

"Any way of stopping it?"

He pulls out the blue phial that he slaved all night over. "Anti-plastic."

"Anti-plastic," she repeats doubtfully.

"Anti-plastic," he agrees, gesturing proudly at his creation. "But first, I've got to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?" He stalks back towards the view of the skyline.

"Hold on. Hide what?"

"The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."

"What's it look like?"

"Like a transmitter." _Okay, maybe I overestimated her capacity for intelligent questions._ "Round and massive, slap bang in the middle of London." He paces back and forth along the riverbank, searching for the object in question. "A huge circular metal structure, like a dish, like a wheel. Radial. Close to where we're standing. Must be completely invisible." He notices that he has lost her attention; she is staring over his shoulder. "What?"

She gestures with her chin, and he turns to see what she is looking at. There is nothing out of the ordinary. "What?" he asked again.

She squints a bit, nods emphatically, so he turns back. Just the normal London skyline, no alien paraphernalia in sight. "What is it? What?"

She still doesn't speak, just gives a long-suffering sigh as her eyes track upwards. He turns around for one final look. And in a blinding flash, he realizes why the transmitter is so well-hidden - because it has been in plain sight all along. "Oh." He looks back at Rose, sees her arching her eyebrows at him, gives the London Eye one final glance for confirmation, then rewards her cleverness with a manic smile. "Fantastic."

And he means it. The discovery of the transmitter was fantastic. Rose Tyler is fantastic. And now it is time for her to go, so that she can continue being fantastic somewhere safely far from him. He starts to run towards the Eye, but when he realizes she is following, he stops, spins to face her. "Right, well, thanks for spotting that. I reckon we're even now. So you can toddle on home, I've got it from here."

"No way, Doctor. I'm not leaving now. They took my boyfriend, they're threatening my home. You said you were on your own, you said there was no one else. Well, now there's me. I'm seeing this through with you."

He frowns, is about to formulate an objection, but then she gives him a grin with her tongue poking out between her teeth and sprints past him. He runs to catch her up. And before he knows what has happened, they are running hand in hand across Westminster Bridge.

On the south bank, he stops to let her catch her breath and to reassess the situation. _One last chance to back out, Rose Tyler. One last chance to make you understand what you are facing._ "Think of it, plastic all over the world, every artificial thing waiting to come alive. The shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables..."

"The breast implants."

He gives her a sharp sidelong look. She is staring straight ahead, poker-faced except for the mischievous glint in her eye, and he feels something relax inside of him. _She can handle herself. No more trying to shake her off._ His voice lightened by this decision, he says, "Still, we've found the transmitter. The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."

Rose leans over a parapet, points down to a hatch in a bulkhead. "What about down there?"

"Looks good to me." A turn of the wheel, and then they are climbing through the hatch, through a brick cobwebbed utility room and then into a large underground chamber, metal staircases twisting through a dizzying depth all leading to the central pit where the Nestene Consciousness awaits, its molten form seething and roiling.

He pauses at the top of the stairs, leans on the railing. "The Nestene Consciousness," he tells her. "That's it, inside the vat. A living plastic creature."

"Well, then," she says in a pragmatic tone, "Tip in your anti-plastic and let's go."

His look is equal parts disappointment and irritation. He had hoped for better from her. "I'm not here to kill it. I've got to give it a chance." He heads down the first flight of stairs and pauses on the landing, raising his voice to address the creature below. "I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation."

The Nestene language is a strange mix, part audible, part telepathic. _"Parley is granted."_

"Thank you. If I might have permission to approach?"

 _"You may."_

Rose sprints by him, babbling something that he doesn't quite catch, and the Doctor sees where she is heading - her boyfriend, the real one, not the Nestene duplicate, is huddled on the next landing. The Doctor rolls his eyes as he starts down the stairs.

"Doctor, they kept him alive!" Rose cries as he passes the two humans on the catwalk.

"Yeah, that was always a possibility. Keep him alive to maintain the copy."

"You knew that and you never said?"

He grits his teeth at the indignation in her voice. Does she expect him to know everything? Would she have thanked him if he had given her false hope? And why is this his problem anyway? He is busy trying to save the human race; he doesn't need distraction. "Can we keep the domestics outside, thank you?"

He finally makes it down to a concrete ledge directly over the Nestene's vat. "Am I addressing the Consciousness?"

 _"You are."_

"Thank you. If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilisation by means of warp-shunt technology. So may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you shunt off?" He smiles smugly at his wordplay. The Consciousness is not so amused.

The molten plastic bubbles, seems to form an almost humanoid face. _"The Nestene Collective is merely extending its protection in defen_ _c_ _e of this Level 5 planet as authori_ _se_ _d in section 23B of the Constitution of the Shadow Proc-"_

"Oh, don't give me that. It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights."

 _"Furthermore, identification of our technology could only be made by espionage, therefore-"_

"I AM TALKING!" roars the Doctor, breathing hard. The Consciousness recoils just a bit, and the Doctor is torn between satisfaction and self-loathing at being able to provoke such a reaction. He moderates his tone slightly. "This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learned how to walk, but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf: Please, just go."

For a second, as he is wrapping up this speech, he feels hope that reason and peace might carry the day. The hope evaporates the instant he hears Rose's panicked cry. He half-turns to see what has alarmed her, but before he can react, an Auton has his arms locked behind his back, while another reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the anti-plastic.

 _"Peaceful contract, Doctor? Convention 15? You have violated the terms of the truce."_

"That was just insurance," he insists, struggling futilely against his captor. "I wasn't going to use it."

 _"Do you know the penalty for an attack while under flag of truce, Doctor?"_

"I was not attacking you. I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy. I swear."

 _"And as if we needed further evidence of your hostile intentions, there is your Time Lord weaponry."_

"What do you mean?" he asks, honestly confused. But only for a moment - only until the door of a freight lift slides open to reveal the TARDIS. "No. Oh, no. Honestly, no."

 _"Do you deny this is yours?"_

"Yes, that's my ship."

 _"It is one of the engines of war that destroyed our food stocks, our homes, our world."_

"That's not true. I should know, I was there. I fought in the war."

 _"So you admit you are responsible for the devastation of our civilisation as well as countless others."_

"It wasn't my fault," he cries in anguish, only half-believing his own words. The guilt twists his stomach, crushes his hearts and lungs. "I couldn't save your world! I couldn't save any of them!"

 _"Then neither will you save this one. Final takeover will now commence,"_ the Consciousness declares, just as Rose, looking panicky as she leans over the railing, cries, "What's it doing?"

"It's the TARDIS." The Doctor bends and twists, trying to shake the Auton loose, but it is no contest. "The Nestene's identified its superior technology. It's terrified. It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion. Get out, Rose! Just leg it now!"

He watches in horror as a dome of energy forms over the top of the vat and lightning bolts shoot up through the ceiling. "It's the activation signal," he tells the humans. "It's transmitting. Get out, Rose! Just get out! Run!" Even as he says it, he feels the hopelessness of the situation. Where is she supposed to run to, when the Nestene Consciousness will soon be in control of all London? He is the only one who can stop the invasion, and his own odds aren't looking too good at the moment.

And then a part of the roof caves in and takes out a section of the staircase, cutting off retreat. Rose drags her boyfriend over to the TARDIS; he cowers against the door while she tugs futilely on the handle. The Doctor plants his feet against the efforts of the Auton to shove him into the vat, and stares up at the human girl, trying to formulate some plan that will save her if not him, trying to find a way to get her to safety. _Why did I ever let her get caught up in this?_

Behind him, the Consciousness roars its imminent victory. "Time Lord! _See the final outcome of the Time War. The children of Gallifrey and of Skaro burning each other to ashes, and Polymos reigning supreme!"_

But the Doctor scarcely hears the taunt, because he can see Rose Tyler, fantastic human, coming to a decision. She pulls away from the sniveling wreck at her feet, stands tall, her eyes locked on his. A ghost of a smile crosses his lips, a flicker of hope lights his eyes, as she crosses the room and begins swinging an axe at the wall.

And then she is sailing towards him, clinging to a length of chain like some ridiculous pink and yellow Tarzan parody. The Doctor feels his captor stumble in surprise, and with a swift twist forward, manages to flip the off-balance Nestene over his back and into the vat. Rose takes out the other creature with a good kick as she flies by, and both Auton and anti-plastic tumble into the heart of the Consciousness.

"Rose!" he cries, rushing forward to catch her on her return swing. _You brilliant, wonderful, fantastic human!_ He wraps his arms around her, steadies her back onto her feet, and then peers into the roiling vat. "Now we're in trouble!" he informs her with a manic grin. He runs for the TARDIS, giving the occasional glance back to make sure she is right on his heels, as the demise of the Nestene Consciousness creates a spectacular series of explosions.

The boyfriend is clinging to the TARDIS, arms extended as if he were trying to melt inside. The Doctor reaches over him to unlock the door, and gives him a rather unceremonious nudge inside with his knee. The younger man scrambles forward a few feet, then freezes as he takes in the ship's interior. The Doctor pushes past him and heads for the console, leaving Rose to bring up the rear and close the door.

"It's bi- it's big- it's- it's-"

Rose crouches next to her wide-eyed boyfriend. "It's bigger on the inside, yeah. It's alien, Mickey. But a good kind of alien, not the take-over-the-world kind." She pats his shoulder comfortingly, then springs to her feet and leaves him behind.

"So it's all sorted then? Invasion defeated?" she asks the Doctor.

"Yep."

She watches him work the controls for a second, bouncing on her toes. He can smell the heady mixture of adrenaline and endorphins rolling off of her. "Need any help?"

"Just a short hop, and...there." As the TARDIS groans to a landing, he points at a button on her left. "That'll open the doors, if you'd like to do the honours."

The boyfriend is through the doors and across the alleyway almost faster than the Doctor's eye can follow. Rose follows at a more leisurely pace, ringing her mother's mobile but hanging up again as soon as she ascertains that the other woman is still alive.

The Doctor stands in the TARDIS doorway, feeling an unexpected hollowness as he watches her walk away. When she turns back towards him, he manages a smile. "Nestene Consciousness? Easy," he says with a snap of his fingers.

"You were useless in there," she teases. "You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."

Her tone is breezy, but he responds in all seriousness. "Yes, I would. Thank you." He takes a deep breath, prepares to sever the first connection he has felt since the Time War. "Right then. I'll be off." He should stop there. He means to stop there. But somehow, he hears his voice continuing, "Unless, er, I don't know...you could come with me." She doesn't react, and now that he has begun, he feels compelled to continue. "This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."

If he knows anything about human expressions, that is a smile of excitement and anticipation he sees ghosting across her lips. But then the boyfriend, still huddled on the ground, points an accusing finger. "Don't. He's an alien. He's a thing."

"He's not invited," the Doctor says decisively. He has her on the hook, he is sure - time to reel her in. "What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere."

"Is it always this dangerous?"

It doesn't even cross his mind to lie. As much as he wants this (and truth be told, he is surprised by how badly he wants her to accept an invitation that 30 seconds ago he hadn't even planned on extending), she has to know what she is getting into. "Yeah," he says with a tight smile.

The lamprey at her feet wraps his arms around her waist, anchoring her to the earth. "Yeah, I can't." Is he deluding himself, or is that real regret in her voice? "I've got to go and find my mum, and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so..."

"Okay." He feels like she punched him in the gut. But he has spent 900 years working on his poker face, and the War has only honed this skill. So he says merely, "See you around." He hesitates in the door for a minute longer, as his brain races through a million things he could say to press, cajole, wheedle. But the survivor of the Time War knows this parting is for the best. _You don't need her. And she's certainly better off without you._ So in the end, he steps back, closes the door, and leaves Rose Tyler behind. For good this time.

* * *

 _The End...sort of. Because as we all know, he's not really leaving her for good at all. If you would like to see my take on the last minute of the episode, please check out my story "Thirty-five Seconds". Thanks for reading!_


End file.
